Stocks rise but bonds fall as rate hikes look imminent

Markets continued to rally on Friday.

The S&P 500 rose 0.4 percent to another record high while the STOXX Europe 600 rose 1.0 percent.

Earlier on Friday, the Nikkei 225 jumped 1.2 percent while the Shanghai Composite rose 0.5 percent.

Commodities mostly rose. West Texas Intermediate crude rose 1.3 percent but gold fell 0.9 percent.

Government bonds fell. The US 10-year Treasury yield rose six basis points to 2.47 percent.

Bond yields rose as traders in the federal funds market priced in a 100 percent probability of a Federal Reserve rate hike on 14 December.

Adding to pressure on bonds were reports on Friday showing that inflation was picking up around the world.

The Bank of England reported that UK consumers’ inflation expectations jumped to 2.8 percent in November, the highest in more than two years, from 2.2 percent in August.

The National Bureau of Statistics reported that China's producer prices rose 3.3 percent in November from the previous year, the fastest rate of increase in five years.

"China has entered a new inflationary cycle," Raymond Yeung, chief greater China economist at Australia & New Zealand Banking Group in Hong Kong, told Bloomberg News. "The next move of the PBOC should be an interest rate hike, not a cut."